Homespun Doll Blanket - Free Pattern - Stashbusting for Stashaholics

Yesterday, I finished my latest pattern called the Homespun Doll Blanket.  I call it Homespun because I'm using up my little balls of scrap yarn, giving it that homemade feeling that I just love.

This blanket includes various types of yarn, such as Caron's Simply Soft, Bernat Baby Coordinates, Lily Sugar 'N Cream cotton, etc..  I chose several balls in various colors that I thought worked together.  The darker stripe is actually a darker purple.  There's lavender, white, blue, pink, dark purple, and a variegated pastel cotton.  Since all of this yarn came out of my stash, this is a Stashbusting for Stashaholics project.  Yay!

This blanket is knitted and has a crocheted border.

Here's what I did:

I took all my small balls of yarn and starting with one of them, I tied another ball to it, rolling it up into a bigger ball as I went.  By the time I was finished, I had all the colors tied together and wrapped up in one big ball.  When I was knitting the blanket up and reached the end of the yarn ball, I had to add a little bit more yarn, so I suggest having a few "extra" balls of yarn laid out to the side in case you have to do this too.

I used a set of size 9 straight knitting needles and a size G crochet hook.

To begin, cast on 80.   Knit each row for the entire length of the blanket.  My blanket measured 18 inches across and 18 1/2 inches long BEFORE I added the border.

The border is 4 rows of sc, with a (sc, ch 1, sc) in each corner.  I worked 2 rows of light blue, then 2 rows of lavender.  The 5th row of the border was a decorative one.  I did a (sl st, sk 1 st, 5 dc in next st, sk 1 st, repeat around) border and at times I did have to fiddle a bit to make the stitch pattern work out nicely for the corners, which was 9 dc in the ch 1 space in the corner.  But you can't tell that I skipped an extra stitch here and there.

So, that's the basic pattern for my Homespun Doll Blanket.  I have LOTS of small scrap balls of yarn and I've already rolled up my next big ball of yarn for another one of these.